700 - 600 BC
*53,Macha
Mongruadh
- *59.Ugaine Mor
700 - 500
BC The Celts would emerge as one of the most important people in Europe.
668 - 661 BC.
*53.Macha Mongruadh - of the Red Tresses
became the 64th Monarch of Tara / Erinn and ruled
with *60.Cimbaoth jointly who had been the ruler of
Emania for the previous
18 years, who then died. From the time
of Partholon down to
*60.Cimbaoth it
had been
1202 years. From *60.Cimbaoth to Fergus
Fogha was to be 400 years.
From *60.Cimbaoth to
Connor mac Nessa
450 years. *60.Cimbaoth
to the destruction of Emain Macha
by the Heremonian Dal Cuinn 3 Colla
brothers 920 years.
661 - 654 BC.
*61.Macha Mongruadh - of the Red Tresses as the
Queen of Ireland ruled alone as the
Celtic Irian
64th
Monarch of Erinn
for 14 years,
who was the daughter of
*60.Aodh
Ruadh
- of Red Complexion the
previous
Irian 61st King of Tara / Erinn, and
she was to be the
only woman ever to be a
Queen of Ireland
in her own right, and
both
Emain Macha
and Armagh in
the south - east of the
Ulster Province
are named for her.
654 - 634 BC. *65.Reacht
/ Reachtaidh
Righ Dearg - the Red King
became the
Celtic
Heberian
65th
King of
Tara / Erinn
who was a son of
*64.Lewy /
Lughaidh Lagha
the previous
60th King of
Tara / Erinn, and he had been
involved in the killing of
*60.Macha
Mongruadh
-
of the Red Tresses
the previous Irian
64th
Monarch of
Erinn.
He also
subdued the Celtic
Cruthin
Gaelic
Picts in Alba /
Scottish Highlands
with a powerful force of his aristocratic warriors to increase his personal authority
there, as the Picts were
growing wayward in the payment of their yearly tribute to the
Gaelic Milesian
Kings of
Ireland. He was to rule for
20 years until he
too was killed in battle by
*59.Ugaine
Mor / *59.Hugoney the Great.
634 - 594 BC.
*59.Ugaine Mor / Hugoney
- the Great
became the
Celtic
Heremonian
66th King of Tara / Erinn, who was a son of
58.Eochy / Eochaidh
Buadach, the son of
*57.Duach Ladhrach the previous
59th King of Tara / Ireland.
Many of the
important aristocratic Gaelic Milesian
Heremonian
warrior
Septs in the Connacht Province,
the
Leinster Province,
the
Munster Province, the
Highlands of Scotland
and the
Ulster Province were to
trace their direct male line descent from him personally. He was a contemporary of Alexander the Great
and was to rule Ireland for
40 years,
during which time he was to sail with a fleet into the
Mediterranean and landed forces in Africa,
and also laid siege to Sicily, and also went into Gaul. He married
Ceasair the daughter of the
King
of the Gauls who
were his Celtic kinsmen, and they had 22 sons and
3 daughters, and he was to divide the Kingdom of
Erinn
into 25 parts for them to inherit, which
was to last for 300 years. Only
2 of his sons were to leave
any aristocratic warrior issue and of these;
*60.Leary
/ Laoghaire Lorc would be the
68th King of
Tara / Erinn and the
direct
male line ancestor of 2 main
Heremonian Septs in the
Leinster Province the Ui Laoghaire Ui Lughaidh Cu Corb
Septs who were to mostly the
Kings
of Leinster,
and the
Ui Laoghaire
Ui Connla
Septs who would be mostly
the Kings of Ossory,
but despite this both would produce Kings
of Leinster and
Ossory, and their
Heremonian
Ui Laoghaire
Septs / Family branches there
especially in Southern Leinster.
*60.Coffey
/ Cobthach
Caol Bhreagh - the Slender of
Brega was to become the
69th King of Tara / Erinn
and the direct male line ancestor of
the main aristocratic Heremonian
Ui Cobhthaigh
Septs in the
Leinster Province,
the Ui Felim
Dal Cuinn 3 Colla
Septs in the kingdom of
Orghialla /
Airghialla
anglicized as
Oriel
in Southern
Ulster, the
Ui Felim Dal Cuinn
3
Connachta Septs and the Ui Felim
Dal Cuinn
Ui Maine
in the Connacht
Province, the
Ui Felim Dal Cuinn
southern
Ui Niaill
in Midhe / Northern
Leinster
and the
Ui Felim
Dal Cuinn northern
Ui
Niaill in the Ulster Province, the
Ui Cobhthaigh Ui Conaire
Muscraige and
Earna Septs in the
Munster Province, and their kinsmen the
Ui Conaire
Dal Riada /
Scottii of
Co. Antrim
in
Ulster
and
Argyle
(The Land of the
Gael),
Albany
/
Scottish Highlands.
Wine was imported into
Celtic
Gaul, while beer was for home production, and Pork was a favourite
dish, with etiquette of precedence and hospitality was observed, with strangers
being fed before any inquiries were made, and the Celts were also obsessed with
magic and
ritual, for as rural dwellers magic pervaded every aspect of their lives,
and they were concerned to constrain the powers of magic to their personal benefit.
Ritual, sacrifice and sacred stories were used to impress the deities by
precedent and remembrance, but there was no real conformity as in most major religions
or organised structures such as the Greeks and the Romans had. They sprung from a
common Indo - European tradition, which they shared with the
Aryan ancestors of
the Hindus and the Italic forerunners of the Romans, and originally they had
2 principal
seasons, Warm and Cold, which eventually evolved into
the following
4 Festivals.
Samhain:
Fertility
/ Reassembly was on November 1st : Which was a gathering together, as each Tuath
/ Family region went to the
Oenach / Assembly at the end of the year, and the beginning of the next, a
turning point of the agricultural cycle and the end of the grazing cycle when
only the breeders were kept from slaughter, providing unlimited feasting, seen as
the beginning of good fortune for the coming Spring and Summer. The union of the Daghda
/ The Good Father / the Protector and Benefactor with a divinity
such as Morrigan the
Queen of the Demons, or Boann
who was the deity of the River Boyne, with
Morrigan also known as Nemain Panic and Badb
Catha - the Raven of the Battle.
Macha
and
Medb /
Maeve were
female names of divinities also with mare attributes and symbolism, such as
Epona who was a Celtic deity. No
deities of War just the Wisdom of the Sun, as they were only concerned
with their local deities both male and female. In Gaul they had Cernunnos - the Horned One, and
Tarvos - the
Three - Horned Bull. The night of the eve before Samhain was overrun by magic
forces when magical warriors came from out of the caves and mounds, and mortal men
might be received into these realms, and assaults occurred on the aristocratic
strongholds with flame and poisonings attempted by the demons. The
Daghda / Father represented
immense
strength and appetite, clad in a short garment of a servant, his weapon was a
great club, which was dragged on a wheel, and he also had a great magical cauldron, which was
a symbol
of abundance in Ireland
from which no one went away without being satisfied.
Imbolc
- February 1st: Lactation of the ewes, beginning on the
Feast of
St. Brigid whose predecessor, Brigid was a wise woman, who was a daughter of the
Daghda
Mor, a fertility
divinity with attributes of learning and healing.
Sheep had no ritual status, as
did the Ox, Boar and the Dog components in divine and mortal names, although the
qualities of
their wool
was very important to the Celts.
Beltaine
(Cetshamain)
- May 1st: Beginning of the Warm Season, which was a
pastoral
festival where the cattle were taken to open grazing with the lighting of great
fires and then driven in between by the Druids to protect them from
disease, as
the word Beltaine includes the Celtic word for
fire, which was also
a deity name in
Northern Italy, south - east Gaul
and in Noricum who was known there as
Belenus who is
one of the oldest Celtic gods known especially among the pastoralists.
Lugnasad
- August 1st:
was to be introduced by the late coming settler group into
Ireland and
is connected with the Tuatha De Danann
and
Lew
/ Lugh
who became
their King, and
it
was agrarian in character
for the ripening of the crops to ensure the coming harvest, and was
not a thankful gesture,
with the ritual if carried out correctly culminating in the desired
result. Lugh,
who was a latecomer
in Ireland
was also a respected Tuatha De Danann deity
who was less archaic in character then the others, with different weapons. His
epithet was Samildanach - the Lord of Every Skill,
rather then knowledge in general, and it was he who had personally founded the festival for
Tailtu or as
Macha in the
Ulster
Province.
This Festival was also known as Bron Trograin / The Rage of Trograin where
sacrifices were made to increase plenty, and he may have also been a previous
tribal divinity who was to be overshadowed by the later
outstanding deeds of
Lugh.
Always visualised as a young man, Lugh had none of the characteristics of the
Daghda
Mor, although there is no
vivid description of his appearance as there is of the
Daghda
Mor - the Great Father.
Lugh was also known as
Lugh
Lamfhada - of the
Long Arm as he also had far reaching weapons, a great throwing spear and a
sling, that were new impressive additions to the previous
weapons in Ireland at
that time.
These
4 Festivals were all based on
Lunar observations, and
on the nights, not the days. Misfortunes such as
failure of the crops, cattle disease, and other calamities could be attributed to
supernatural non - acceptability of the
King from a physical or ritual blemish
who was a mortal mate of the territorial nature divinity. At
Tara it was Etain
or
Medb who accepted the
Kings as their husbands
as these divinities handed them the goblet, which was a symbol of marriage in Celtic
society, or the Kings would meet her at a well or spring were she waited as a
beautiful maiden. The divinities could also turn from being beautiful maidens into
old hags, and
they could also be very destructive, usually predicting some calamity, or they
could just
appear out of nowhere on a field of battle.
An example of this in later Irish myth,
was to occur to
Cu Chualann the
great epic warrior of the Ulster
Province
who was to be confronted by Badb
in a red cloak with red eyebrows, who was also mounted in a chariot drawn by a grotesque horse,
and accompanied by a crude male figure driving a cow and reciting
horse names. Badb was to
then change
into her bird form of a raven or crow and gloat over the bloodshed, inducing panic
and weakness among the contending warriors.
At this time the Celts who were technically superior were trading with the Greeks and Etruscans, and the
La Tene Celtic style of art developed from this exchange of ideas. Due to their
belief in the Otherworld and that their Souls were immortal the Celts were a
warrior Culture and were great fighters and became in great demand as
mercenaries. From their homeland in Central Europe they were to spread westward
into France and the Brython Isles, south - west
into Iberia, south into Northern Italy and eastwards into the Balkans and Asia
Minor. the Averni into France, the Belgae into Gaul, and Southern
Briton, the Boii into Italy,
the Helvetii into Switzerland and the Scordisci into
Serbia,
Home
Page Return
to Celtic Heritage
On
to
600 - 522 BC